


Did You Love Him?

by VinHampton



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-02
Updated: 2014-06-02
Packaged: 2018-02-03 03:55:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1730225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VinHampton/pseuds/VinHampton
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In therapy, Vin muses about whether she ever really cared for Ivan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Did You Love Him?

"Did you love him?"

"I wish I could say I didn't. But I loved him for more than three years, and to deny that would be to nullify three years, which I cannot do. In a way, he made me who I am. But that's a silly thing to say, isn't it? Cause and effect. He was part of it but if my life had gone completely differently, I'd still be sitting somewhere, nodding my head like some sage and saying 'that made me who I am', as if I had any choice in the matter. 

"I was young. That's another thing we say. I was so young. Also silly, because we're always older now than we were then. I don't know what that has to do with anything. I was sentient and autonomous. Yes, I was 25, 26, 27. I was young but I was conscious, was I not?"

Dr Harold takes down a note and tilts his head. "Tell me what he was like."

Vin reaches over for her glass of water and sips, thinking. She closes her eyes for a few seconds and opens them. 

"Sweet. Soft-spoken. Composed. Loyal." She frowns, then looks up at the therapist. "I don't like thinking about him, Dr Harold."

"Why not?"

"I don't want to love him."

"Why?"

"Because he betrayed me."

"What do you think of when you think of him?"

She pauses. "Death. Pain. Fire. Loss. I don't want to think of him being sweet. I want to think of him being dead." She looks up indignantly. She feels defensive. The doctor remains passive and silent, and so does she. She scowls until the silence becomes too loud to bear.

"Please don't make me."

"You can do or not do anything you wish, Ms Hampton," he says, calmly. It frustrates her. She taps her fingers against the armrest, and for a moment, is in their flat, with the window panes white with snow and the kitchen warm from the food he is cooking. She shakes her head. 

"What are you thinking about?"

She raises her chin and looks at a painting on the wall. A yacht on a calm, lilac sea. It's just a print, she realises. She sighs. 

"I'm thinking about him in his jeans and apron, with a wooden spoon in his hand and a dishcloth over his shoulder. I'm thinking about how I'd sit like this on our grey sofa, and I'd read, and I'd look up and he'd be there, engrossed in what he was doing. And he'd have no idea I was watching him, but I'd be watching him. I'd be thinking about how his jeans were too loose for him and how narrow his hips were and..." She presses the heel of her palm to her forehead. 

"And then?"

She shakes her head again with a sigh. 

"How did he feel about your work?" he asks, turning a page in his notebook and looking at her through thick spectacles. 

"That depended on the job."

"How?"

"It depended on whether I had to sleep with somebody."

"So he knew?"

"Of course."

"And?"

She clasps her hands together in her lap. "On those days, he was sad. He wouldn't really speak to me. And I wouldn't really speak to him. He'd pick me up and..."

"Yes?"

"This stays between us, right?"

"Everything you say here is confidential, Ms Hampton."

She nods. "He'd pick me up after the job was done. I'd get into his car. He would play Chopin, because he knew it calmed me." Vin purses her lips, remembering. "We would go home and he would go to the kitchen without saying a word. He'd make me food and I'd eat it alone. He would drink. Not a lot, mind, just... a glass or two. And then I'd go and take a long shower, a hot shower. I'd get into bed and he would be waiting there. We wouldn't make love on those nights, but he would hold me and tell me..."

She stops suddenly, her face twisting into a grimace. "I'm sorry," she says, wiping her eyes. 

"Take your time." He hands her a tissue. She dabs her eyes with it.

"He would tell me things would change. He would tell me we'd get away some day and we'd move away from Russia. Somewhere sunny. Spain or France or the Bahamas, I don't know. Anywhere else. And we would have a family and nobody would bother us."

"Did you want that?"

"Mm?"

"A family? Children?"

She shrugs. "Sometimes, I did. I'd think about having a baby and taking care of it and giving it things I didn't have. But it was a fantasy. It was never going to happen. And there was no way I could have children in Russia."

"But you would have had a family with him if you could."

"If things had been different, perhaps."

"Do you still want a family?"

"No. I don't know." She frowns. "No. I am not fit for that sort of thing."

"Do you believe that?"

"I do. I've decided not to have children. That's my right, isn't it?"

"Of course. You can do anything you want to do."

She nods and lights a cigarette. 

He lets her smoke in silence before putting his watch back on his wrist. "Ms Hampton, may we wrap up? Is there anything else you want to talk about?"

She shakes her head and pays him. She isn't sure she understands the point of the exercise. In time she will, he assures her.


End file.
